Football federation official steps down after match fixing scandal

The vice president of the Czech Republic's football federation, Milan Brabec, stood down on Thursday after being heavily implicated in a match fixing scandal that has rocked Czech football. However, he denied any wrongdoing. Mr Brabec's position became untenable after police taped telephone conversations between him and Ivan Hornik, the former manager of the club Viktoria Zizkov. Mr Brabec, the then head of the federation's referee commission, and Mr Hornik were heard arranging referees for matches involving the club in a bid to fix results during the 2003/2004 first division season. The match fixing scandal in the Czech Republic erupted in May when police charged Jaroslav Hastik, the sporting director of FC Synot, with trying to bribe match officials. Around 30 referees were then charged with attempting to fix matches as a result of evidence from phone tapping by the police.